Thursday, August 1, 2013

Youth Camp 2013 "Fighting for the Faith"

Here is the first message I received from hubby after the Monday night that teen camp started:

Great start to the conf. 2 young men saved, praise The Lord. Thanks for praying. Will talk with you later. Nate's asleep and I should be too...but I'm doing laundry. Love ya! G-nite.

What a tremendous report! Going two weeks as a single mama are worth it when I receive a message in my inbox like that. Poor guy, though... I wish I could help him with his laundry so he can rest.

And here is a message I received this evening:

Thanks for praying. We've come to our last day...It's been a great week, praise the Lord! Love y'all.

We haven't communicated as much as we normally do since camp started. With a 10-hour time difference between us right now, we who are here on the West Coast are just going to bed when he is waking up, and he is starting evening services when our day begins. I look forward to hearing his stories once everyone returns home and he gets a chance to rest a little.

Hubby is not the photographer in the family, so I was very pleased to receive this many pictures from him. Glad he remembered to get some shots for me. He deserves a big hug when he gets home!

{Below}: We have groups come from all over Ukraine (about the size of Texas) to camp each year. The distance from the city of Odessa to our city of Simferopol is a 12-hour trip by train (and, of course, train is the way to travel in Ukraine). You can see in the map below where Odessa is highlighted with the smaller red circle. Our city of Simferopol is marked with a red star.

{Below}: Group from Odessa, Ukraine

{Below} Group from Lemanskoye, Ukraine (city in the Odessa region)

{Below}: And then, each year we have a faithful group come all of the way from... not just another city, but another country... the country of Belarus! In the map above, Belarus was highlighted with the larger red circle. Talk about commitment to the cause! We are honored that they choose to come year after year, traveling for days to be a part of our Teen Camp. Camp just wouldn't be the same without them.

{Below}: And now some shots of my little guy, Nate. Here he is once again enjoying a meal with buckwheat. That kid is Ukrainian through and through!

{Below} We chose our theme "Fighting for the Faith" this year based on the theme of our home church's Youth Conference this summer. Some of you readers may have already recognized the logo, and for those of you who didn't you can see the original ideas at North Valley Baptist Church's website. Since a western theme is a much more familiar idea for those who really do live in the wild, wild west, it was challenging to translate the team names. Words like wranglers, sheriffs, deputies, rangers, etc... just don't carry the same significance in the Russian language as they do to those of us who grew up in the good 'ole South of the USA. And words like howdy y'all, yeehaw, and giddy'up probably weren't heard much this week at Teen Camp, though I'm sure they had their own version of their ideas of what is western (and how I would have loved to hear them!)

{Below} And to leave you with a smile, I thought you would enjoy seeing this t-shirt that one of the guys came to camp wearing. What would the world do without products "Made in China"? (Of course, he probably never would have known there was a spelling error if hubby hadn't asked to take his picture and explained why he wanted his picture - LOL!)

8 comments:

"Established 1500"? Spelling isn't the only error - but it makes for a great photo. I did wonder about the western theme - would have seemed so appropriate here in Texas. Funny, when I think of that same time frame in California I think of Joaquin Murrieta, Zorro and haciendas. Of course, I was in grade school less than a century after California joined the Union. Thanks for the nostalgis!

Very interesting to see the pictures and read your comments. Even though we are in Europe, you'd be very surprised how different some things are. What a blessing to hear of children being saved! Thank you for sharing this lovely report.

Great to hear from you! Yes, I had heard that one of the young men saved was from your church. Such exciting news!

Several churches were not photographed individually on my post, and I probably should have said that. All I had to work with was what hubby sent me, and I was actually surprised he got as many as he did since taking pictures is not really his “thing” (I usually do all of that for him.) Sorry your church got missed in the post, but I’m sure there were pictures of your group taken that day… just not by my husband – LOL!